Russian Investigative Committee to request satellite images as proof of crimes in Ukraine

June 04, 2014, 19:05 UTC+3MOSCOWInvestigators had already talked to several Russian nationals, including journalists released from captivity, as well as Ukrainian refugees who had asked Russia for shelter

“The Russian Investigative Committee intends to receive satellite images from independent sources in various countries that show the nature and quantity destruction as well as places of dislocation of Ukrainian military units. That will make it possible for investigators to reconstruct an objective picture of what’s going on in southeast Ukraine,” Markin said, adding that the investigators would also use eye-witness accounts of Ukrainian refugees who have sought shelter in Russia.

The Russian Federal Migration Service has received applications from almost 4,000 people, including more than 500 children, with a request to grant them a refugee status or temporary asylum in Russia.

Markin said that investigators had already talked to several Russian nationals, including journalists released from captivity, as well as Ukrainian refugees who had asked Russia for shelter. They were forced to leave their homes to flee persecution by fascist Ukrainian militants,” the Russian Investigative Committee spokesperson said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee is going to give legal assessment to the actions of Ukraine’s parliament-appointed Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, entrepreneur Igor Kolomoisky and other people as part of a criminal investigation into international crimes committed against peaceful civilians in southeast Ukraine, Vladimir Markin, an official spokesperson for the Russian Investigative Committee, told ITAR-TASS.

“The Russian Investigative Committee is planning to prosecute all persons linked to crimes against peaceful civilians; all officials without exception; the military who were directly involved in punitive operations as well as persons issuing orders and financing the murder of peaceful civilians. In this connection, the Russian Investigative Committee is going to give legal assessment to the actions of Arsen Avakov, Igor Kolomoisky and others,” Markin said.

“I would like to assure these “Heroes of Ukraine” that sooner or later their “feats” would be properly appraised by Russian and international judicial bodies,” Markin said.

Russian investigators will also talk to Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in Russia, Russian Children’s Rights Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told journalists on Wednesday that after a conversation with Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee.

“I have just talked to Bastrykin by phone. He told me that a criminal lawsuit had been filed and offered his help. All employees of the Russian Investigative Committee are ready to give professional assistance,” Astakhov stressed, adding prosecutors would come to the Rostov region to talk to the refugees who are telling horrible things.

“I have just learnt that a boy was shot dead only for wearing a St. George Ribbon. These facts should be documented and turned into the evidence of indictment,” the Russian children’s ombudsman said.

The Ribbon of Saint George is a symbol of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.